Isogloss

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Isogloss

in linguistic geography, a line on a map designating the distributional boundaries of a given linguistic phenomenon (phonetic, morphological, syntactic, lexical). For example, an isoglossal line can be drawn showing the distribution of the word gomonit’ (“to din”) in the meaning of govorit’ (“to talk”) in the southwestern regions of the RSFSR, and for the Indo-Iranian languages it is possible, with the aid of an isogloss, to mark the areas that use enclitic pronouns in a subjective, objective, or attributive function. Along with the general term “isogloss” there are also specific terms such as isophone (an isogloss showing the distribution of a sound) and isosyntagm (an isogloss showing the distribution of a syntactic phenomenon).

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References in periodicals archive ?

Only one symbology type, the use of isoglosses, is unique to language maps.

The lay of the language: surveying the cartographic characteristics of language maps

Johnson and Fine's (1985) claim that obscenity functions as a gender isogloss seems overstated in light of available evidence.

Sexual slang and gender

Other languages of the region generally follow Semnani in phonological development, while Sangesari shows deviation, as, for example, in the outcome se for the isogloss 'three'.

The Caspian Language of Sahmirzad

(23) Starostin (1988:113) gives as an isogloss with the IE words, Proto-East Caucasian *wVtVrV 'child (up to one year old)': Tsakurian vudra 'kid up to one year old', Tsez beduro 'cub', Batzbean bader, Chechen ber 'child' and possibly within a Nostratic etymology (Illifi-Svityc 1967: 337).

Burushaski shepherd vocabulary of Indo-European origin

This fact is an additional complicating factor for assessing the degree of accommodation and for establishing accommodation index because the same feature can be analyzed either as maintenance of UEA isogloss or as influence of fusha.

Between accommodation and resistance: Upper Egyptian migrants in Cairo (1)

Further, Tundra Nenets does not participate in another Taimyrian isogloss, namely the marking of agents of passives by a case expressing movement.

Three Nganasan-Evenki/Dolgan morphosyntactic parallels and their implications

John) are two sizeable villages between King's Lynn and Wisbech, lying to the east of an isogloss dividing "linguistic Norfolk"--to the east--from those few villages of Norfolk to the west of the isogloss that share few of the traditional defining characteristics of East Anglian dialects (see Trudgill 2001; Britain 2002).

Innovation diffusion: "Estuary English" and local dialect differentiation: the survival of Fenland Englishes (1)

(7) Also for Jordan (1974: ??97 (2)), Kent is outside the area enclosed by the isogloss which marks this change to i- in the map.

Old English ea in Middle Kentish place-names

At the same time, there are no strong isogloss bundles between areas VI and VII, or between III and IV, which explains the absence of transitional areas between them.

Sociolinguistic comparison of the development of Estonian and Hungarian dialect areas

The isogloss for SVO also embraces Cambodian/Khmer (where the morphology is largely moribund) and Indonesian-Malay and some other Austronesian languages of the area.